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Asked — Edited

Using Skype With ARC Request

Has anyone successfully integrated using Skype with ARC to create an automated Skype control? If so, how was it done, was it an easy process, and what functionality does it give you?

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If it is possible, could this be a feature that can be added to ARC in a future update? Having a dedicated Skype control to control things like answering and ending a call, going full screen, switching cameras, enabling and disabling cameras, all using voice control, or setting up an auto answer feature say after two ring.

This would also give the ability to use a camera with ARC that would have a built in microphone (which is something I would love to see on a future EZ-Robot camera). This would be a great feature for remote robot navigation (with onboard PC), telepresence calling, and as part of a robot security system where a robot could call you on another Skype device and stream a live video feed. Of course some of this can be done already using a v4 camera or webcam, but the addition of using a microphone with video feed would be a great tool.

Is this something that DJ and the EZ-Robot team would consider adding to ARC, and would others be interested in having such a control?


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#1  

That is a great idea. Before I found EZ-Robot, I was looking into http://www.cellbots.com/ which used Google Chat for both command control messaging and video communication. The project seems to have died in 2011, and I found EZ-B about the same time so went in that direction, but I have always thought it would be a great way to do a remote presence bot. Using a standard that everyone has or can easily get vs proprietary software has a lot of advantages.

Alan

#2  

The dev api's for Skype are really bad right now. Most people have abandoned skype for integration. Check out VSee. It's free and you just call the exe to start it. The robot can be setup to àuto answer from certain computers.

It's really sad but the sdk for Skype used to be good. It now is pretty much junk.

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#3  

Thanks for he replies guys.

Well that sucks. I thought the boys and girls at Skype would have been on top of things in that regard. I guess that's why the isn't to mention about it when I did a quick forum search. I'll check out VSee to see what it's all about, but I would need it to be iOS compatable as well. But it will be useful for PC to tablet communication.

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#4  

@David and @Alan.

VSee was great advice (I never expected anything less). Got it installed on my laptop and tablet now. I did a simple exec() command in a script on my laptop and it launched VSee perfectly. I set the tablet to automatically except calls, set the screen size to a large as I needed it, and voilà, it worked a charm. And there is also a free iOS app as well.

Thanks for the advice.

Now if I could only get it to automatically call someone. Do you know of a way of doing that?

#5  

I haven't looked inot having the robot call someone else. I always setup the robot to receive the call because I figure that it will be a human who wants to make this connection to see what the robot sees.

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#6  

That's a fair point and completely agree. That would be the main use. I figured that if the robot cal call out, it could be used as a security system of sorts wherebuy if a PIR was triggered for example, it could make a call to my phone so I can see and hear what's going on.

Another example would be tomise ARCs speech recognition control to voice dial out and call someone from the robots PC. A lazy way for some, but could have some uses for someone who is not very phisiclly mobile or tech savvy, (or both in my mothers case). I'm sure that there are other applications where this could be useful that I haven't thought of.

I had a quick look to see where contacts are stored or any .exe pathways for autodialling, but couldn't find anything useful.